Logitech MX Master 2S and 3DConnexion Spacemouse Review [updated 18 month Long Term Review]

[TVwazhere]

As a full time CAD Technician (Inventor, AutoCAD) peripherals are pretty important to me. One of the reasons my work computer has a Corsair K70 LUX with brown switches  recently my Logitech M510's middle scroll wheel button was on the fritz; a very useful panning tool and "open in new tab" selector (Try it some time! I use it for links in Chorme and opening new Windows File explorer tabs mainly) and it being over 4 years old (having been in the job position longer than I have) I felt it was time for an upgrade. 

 

 

I know the Master 3 just came out, but overall I'm still happy with the 2S. It's a great looking mouse, feels great in my hand after a while of using it, and while it does have some downsides for me personally, I'm glad this is my new work daily driver.

 

Negatives:

I wasnt a fan of the scroll wheel at first but I've come to love the middle mouse button as well as the rubber texture of the wheel itself. I'm personally NOT a fan of the smart scroll lock, and I would have it disabled if not for Logitech Drivers and Software messing with work related programs (I got to experience it for a few days before everything started going haywire), which leaves me with the default settings only since unlike Logitech's G series of gaming Peripherals, there's no onboard memory to save settings so you can take it to different computers. Micro USB charging sadly  and I do not have any real way to monitor the battery other than turning the switch off and back on to see where the power level is at. The "back and forward" buttons are also strangely placed and shaped, but the back button is around where it should be and that's the one I use the most anyways so it's fine. I havent found a good use for the horizontal scroll wheel yet.

 

Positives:

For me, I like heavy mice (coming from a G502 at home with all the weights put in it) so this roughly 140g mouse feels good to me. I'm mostly a palm type user, and even with my large hands this feels very nice (even though I did had a teeny bit of discomfort initially at the raised edge where the space between your thumb and index finger rest). The buttons (except the mushy back/forwards) all feel great to use,  the thumb rest is very generous, tracking is pretty good, the scrolling (both ratchet and free spin) feel good to use (and I'm slowly getting used to not winging it in Autocad/Inventor for zooming purposes) it glides very smoothly over my fabric mouse pad, and there's zero (at least to me) perceivable mouse acceleration. 

 

Conclusion:

For $65 right now on amazon ($86 if you want it in white or blue) I'm very happy with my (company's ) purchase. I can see why professionals like this mouse, and after some hands on experience I can easily give it a solid recommend. Now let's review something a bit different...

 

 

The 3DConnexion Spacemouse Wireless is meant to allow a CAD user to manipulate a 2D or 3D model in all six degrees of freedom (pan, zoom, rotate) with precision and accuracy. 

 

Negatives:

First and foremost, this thing has a LEARNING CURVE. Especially out of the box, this thing is SUPER sensitive to the absolute smallest touch. Trying to Pan (sliding it up, down, left or right like a joystick) often triggered rotate and/or zoom commands because it's sensing if I push down even a teeny bit. Twisting the whole knob was the only consistent moment I picked up easily. the rest took a lot of adjusting the sensitivity sliders to get it to a position where I could actual pan the assembly to the left without zooming out the model till it was the size of a pixel on my 4K screen. 

Spoiler

How i have the sensitivity settings set

Using this thing and simultaneously working also has some other drawbacks. In some environments you cannot make a selection (for example, place the end point of a line) while you're freely moving around. In some environments you can; however the line, leader, or measurement will freeze at where the cursor was before you started freely moving with the Spacemouse. Technically the cursor is still live, so any click you make while moving will register, but you wont be getting a real time visual update on how long that line is or a constantly updating dimension line based on the second end point, etc. Not exactly a "seamless" experience 3Dconnexion advertises in their promotional materials. I've also noticed this mouse overall works better in Inventor (A mainly 3D program) than it does in AutoCAD (A mainly 2D program). In fact, AutoCAD has a weird quirk where I need the Navigation bar open in order to use the Mouse, even though with the mouse I'll never need these buttons and it's now just taking up screen space. 

Spoiler

The Navigation bar

Like the MX Master 2S, this also charges with a MicroUSB cable which is unfortunate. At least the battery life on it is fairly long. I dont tend to use this for hours on end on a daily basis, so since acquiring it and charging it the first time since August 23rd (about 17 days ago) it is only at half battery which is pretty good I'd say. I'll get a months worth of charge before I need to charge it. (I went with the wireless version only because I'm trying to reduce the amount of cables I need on my desk daily)

 

Positives:

Build quality: is honestly pretty amazing. The Spacemouse is HEAVY. This thing easily weights close to a pound (450g) which is GREAT because that in combination with the very large rubber bottom pad makes this thing feel like it's glued to your desk when using it normally. The joystick feels great to use. Kinda like using the first party OEM console controllers from Sony or Microsoft feel over the third party controllers your parents got you for $15 because you needed controllers for your friends/siblings but you always had to argue who got the "best" controller. The Two macro buttons are completely customizable (and if you're like @Real_PhillBert and two isnt enough, they have the SpaceMosue pro with a wrist wrest and 14 15* macro buttons) and work off a gesture system. When you click the shoulder buttons, either 4 or 8 buttons surround your cursor in a circle spending on how you have it configured. You can click on the option, or simply moving your cursor past the button to trigger the command. This sometimes isn't as responsive as I'd like it to be (there's a delay between the button press and the GUI appearing) but that's probably just me trying to go too fast. One truly great feature of the software is it can not only tell what program you're in, but what environment you're in too! This allows you to have different macros for all of your environments without having to manually change them each time!

Spoiler

Different Macros for Different Work Environments

 

Conclusion:

The Spacemouse CAN also be used for things like scrolling in a Chrome browser and moving in a PDF, but it's best used in a CAD work environment as an orbiting, panning and zooming extension to your mouse. At $120 for the wired, $140 for the wireless, $280 for the pro and $320 for the pro wireless, this is an expensive peripheral that's really only recommendable to full time CAD professionals or someone really serious about their CAD experience. For entry level, students or someone casually using sketch up, your right hand mouse and a few keyboard Macro shortcuts will suffice just fine. 

[Guest]

Yeah, the fact that I don't use forward much kept my attention away from how truly bizarre the placement is. I still use the 2S at my office because I brought all the 3s home by mistake lol. Oddly, switching between the 2 and 3 isn't as jarring as I thought it would be. I might return one of them since I only use the scroll wheel in PS, so the new profiles and bigger wheel on the 3 don't mean much to me there. Overall, I have no doubt the 3 would be a pointless upgrade for you.

[TVwazhere]

6 minutes ago, Den-Fi said:

Overall, I have no doubt the 3 would be a pointless upgrade for you.

Eber would agree. Only worth an upgrade for professionals coming from anything other than a Non MX Master mouse. 

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

huh. challenge accepted

Took me a couple of weeks with some of the axis's diabled and the sensitivity even lower than it is to get used to it. Eventually I got all the axis''s as well as the sensetivity dialed in right where I can use it efficiently. Hand placement is key!

[FloRolf]

22 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Try it some time! I use it for links in Chorme and opening new Windows File explorer tabs mainly

Wait I thought that was common knowledge and everyone did it? 

People actually go "right click -> open in New tab" every time? 

[Real_PhillBert]

Nice write up!

 

I've been using the Master 2S for a few months now and like it. I use the scroll flick a lot, then when I come home to my M95 without that I kinda miss it.

 

The only thing I dont like about the 2S is that 1, it's wireless, I just love the idea of never having to worry about a wired mouse running out of juice (I'm old school I guess); and 2, the charge port is micro USB instead of USB-C like everything else on my desk now. 

 

As for the space mouse, I still really really want to try one, the Pro has been on my Amazon wish list for longer than I care to admit. Have you spent much time with it in Inventor? I use Creo and it's usually known for not playing nicely with third party plugins, but 3Dconnection claims it does, I'm mildly skeptical. 

[TVwazhere]

On 9/10/2019 at 6:26 PM, Real_PhillBert said:

As for the space mouse, I still really really want to try one, the Pro has been on my Amazon wish list for longer than I care to admit. Have you spent much time with it in Inventor? I use Creo and it's usually known for not playing nicely with third party plugins, but 3Dconnection claims it does, I'm mildly skeptical. 

I have about three weeks of use under my belt. Overall for Inventor I'd say it's pretty solid, it's got just about every command you'd want for macros. AutoCAD support is a bit weaker but also relatively good. It's getting used to not holding F4 and having a constrained orbit that took a lot of getting used to

[Real_PhillBert]

Today is day 1 with a space mouse Pro.

 

[TVwazhere]

*Update*

 

Battery for the MX Master finally died. Close to two months of 40 hour work week battery life is pretty good, though I know for sure that my previous daily driver (MX518) lasted about six months with AA batteries. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

Battery for the MX Master finally died.

Welp, there's no way to recharge it. Might as well buy the MX Master 3.

[TVwazhere]

Just now, Den-Fi said:

Welp, there's no way to recharge it. Might as well buy the MX Master 3.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

 

[TVwazhere]

On 10/15/2019 at 2:30 PM, TVwazhere said:

Battery for the MX Master finally died. Close to two months of 40 hour work week battery life is pretty good, though I know for sure that my previous daily driver (MX518) lasted about six months with AA batteries. 

After a full charge, battery has again died. This time only with 26 (*40 hour) work days, means the battery has about a 1000 hour charge time. Time will tell how fast this degrades.

https://www.timeanddate.com/date/workdays.html?d1=15&m1=10&y1=2019&d2=21&m2=11&y2=2019

 

*Edit* also as an update, the movment in the Space mouse has basically become second nature to me in Inventor. I dont really use it for AutoCAD or Inventor Drawings since the middle scroll wheel does exactly what I want anyways, but the macros are still really nice 

[TVwazhere]

On 11/21/2019 at 11:20 AM, TVwazhere said:

After a full charge, battery has again died. This time only with 26 (*40 hour) work days, means the battery has about a 1000 hour charge time. Time will tell how fast this degrades.

https://www.timeanddate.com/date/workdays.html?d1=15&m1=10&y1=2019&d2=21&m2=11&y2=2019

Another 23 Work days have passed, and the MX Master has again died (doing this for consistency testing) The lost 120 hours of battery life from the previous 26 days could be explained by the fact that I was on vacation for approximate 12 actual days from 12/10 -1/1, but the battery was still on standby (I did not switch it off)

 

Also at some point the last couple of months the Spacemouse pro Wireless has also did, but I havent been keeping close track on that becasue honestly it's not a big deal since there's wired versions, and the amount of battery life in it seems to be mostly on par with the mouse (perhaps a bit better since I use it less on a minute by minute basis)

 

At this point I plan on doing a Six month Long term review for a conclusion (2 months from now, March 10th). 

[TVwazhere]

On 1/8/2020 at 10:22 AM, TVwazhere said:

At this point I plan on doing a Six month Long term review for a conclusion (2 months from now, March 10th). 

Well, totally forgot about that! LOL! So, I guess I'll write the conclusion now.

 

How has using the MX Master 2S and Space mouse felt over the 7.5 months I've had working 40hrs/wk with them? Honestly, pretty great. The MX Master 2S I have definitely had to recharge one more time since the last update (though I'm not exactly sure when) but it hasnt felt like battery life is degrading suddenly. I've gotten used to the "Infinity ratchet scroll wheel" that the mouse defaults to if it's not hooked up to Logitech's software to disable it, and somehow I'm able to make the transition between the MX Master at work and G502 at home relatively easily even though their scroll wheels function pretty differently. The feet have worn slightly from use but nothing out of the ordinary and it still glides well across my well used mouse pad. This mouse definitely is at it's best when you're able to use it's software though, which my situation was unfortunate enough not to be able to (though I imagine it's rare, as I explained in the initial write up)

 

The space mouse has honestly been a pretty good workflow upgrade, but admittedly I havent been utilizing macros in the 3D space as much as I initially wanted to (mostly because I forgot about all the ones I had set up LOL!) I still use certain macros very frequently either commands i use a lot like constraint, or commands that are on separate ribbon tabs that are inconvenient to find such as 2D drawing's "Replace Model Reference" which is in a tab that's not a normal part of my work flow. Its funny to step back and see how I use 7/8 of these macros on the below screenshot wheel every time I do a 2D drawing, but I really only use 1 or 2 macros in the 3D assembly workspace. (Not that my 3D workspace macros are poorly chosen, I just default to keyboard shortcuts!)

 

How have both peripherals held up? Perfectly. Nothing feels like it's suddenly getting loose, losing it's clicky-ness, wobbling or gonna break if i push it too hard. Honestly what I'd expect from Logitech, but I'm glad to see this holds true for the Space mouse too. Notably, I tried using Inventor on a computer that did not have the Spacemouse, and found myself missing it significantly as i tried to move around the 3D work space, though not as much with the 2D workspace as my keyboard shortcut habits came back to me quickly. 

 

Overall Ratings:

MX Master: 9/10

• Ergonomics:9.5/10 (deduct a half point for the forward button being over the back)
• Features: 9/10
• Daily use: 9/10
• Drivers: ??/10
• Value @ $65: 10/10 

 

SpaceMouse: 9/10

• Ergonomics: 8/10
• Features: 10/10
• Daily use: 9/10 (once yo get past the learning curve!)
• Drivers: 9/10
• Value @ $120: 9/10, @$140: 8.5/10 (unless you simply need the portability, get the wired version)

 

I've only been an official CAD Tech for five years, but I can 100% recommend these products based on my experiences using them. 

[TVwazhere]

A near 18 month update: 

 

For anyone looking to purchase the 3D connexion, I'd strongly recommend the wired version if you dont need the wireless. For the year or so I've had issues with the buttons not working and sometimes the joystick not responding at all despite the app signaling a connection and reading a battery status. I've now plugged it in hard wire to my computer and (so far) the issue has completely fixed itself. Granted, I have a lot of items between the back of my computer tower and the mouse itself, but the items have not changed since I bought this mouse so this decaying signal strength is frustrating. 

 

Beyond that, the original conclusion for a year ago still stands, both have been great additions to my workspace and I'm happy with the purchases. 

[NinJake]

Hows the battery life been on your mouse so far? I picked up the mx3 about 2/3months ago and it's been pretty awesome!

[sub68]

On 4/23/2020 at 9:11 AM, TVwazhere said:

SpaceMouse: 9/10

random screenshot from SAO2

[Real_PhillBert]

FWIW, my space mouse pro has been excellent. It's been on my desk for ~18 months now, I'd certainly buy it again.

 

I kinda want to upgrade to the enterprise version for more buttons, since I'm a bit of a macro button guy. 

 

The only issue I've run into with the 3D mouse is some occasional weird software incompatibilities with Creo. Sometimes (maybe 5% of the time) I'll open a drawing and the right click menu's will popup and disappear in about a third of a second. Obviously rendering the right click menus completely useless. I did some googling and it seems this is some weird software glitch with 3D Connexion, if I unplug the space mouse and re-plug it in, the problem goes away. Very weird, but not often enough for me to throw a huge fit. 

 

Great write up, TV!

[TVwazhere]

16 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Hows the battery life been on your mouse so far? I picked up the mx3 about 2/3months ago and it's been pretty awesome!

I would not say I've noticed a significant battery life shift in the last year since the update, it seems I only need to plug it in every month or so to recharge it which is good. 

[Slottr]

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

I would not say I've noticed a significant battery life shift in the last year since the update, it seems I only need to plug it in every month or so to recharge it which is good. 

How have you managed to set up the side and thumb buttons on the MX?

 

I've been fighting wit my MX3 for about 6 months and I still can't find a fluent macro for each one.

[TVwazhere]

3 minutes ago, Slottr said:

How have you managed to set up the side and thumb buttons on the MX?

 

I've been fighting wit my MX3 for about 6 months and I still can't find a fluent macro for each one.

My Thumb button I actually have set to a Windows Tab option (I forget its there most of the time though)

The forward/back buttons I mostly used for website page navigation and I've not yet found a good use for the side scroll wheel other than occasionally using it in Excel. 

[Slottr]

21 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

My Thumb button I actually have set to a Windows Tab option (I forget its there most of the time though)

The forward/back buttons I mostly used for website page navigation and I've not yet found a good use for the side scroll wheel other than occasionally using it in Excel. 

Ah ok. I have the same set up. I find outside of the forward and back buttons I end up underutilizing the mouse big time.